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Folks think of Scrum as an Agile project management system, and it is, but the ceremonies are classic time-management techniques that we see in Get Things Done, SMART Objectives, Pomodor, and the Seven Habits. At its core, Scrum is a stealth time-management system.

Today, most software seems to be written by Agile development teams, and the most popular framework seems to be Scrum. Organizations like Salesforce, Spotify, and many others have opened up about how they use Agile and Scrum.

Scrum was developed by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in the early 1990s. The framework is now backed by "Scrum Mater" training and certification programs. The Scrum Guide spells out how the framework works in concise detail.

In the same way that every US citizen should read the constitution now and again, every Scrum developer should review the actual Scrum Guide from time to time.

Hallmarks of the framework are a prioritized backlog, timeboxed iterations (1-4 weeks), daily scrums, and a review and retrospective to close each iteration (or "sprint").

GTD Backlog Grooming

A great way to manage your time is to use a Getting Things Done workflow. The GTD workflow consists of five stages: capture, clarify, organize, plan, and engage.

The Product Backlog is an ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product and is the single source of requirements for any changes to be made to the product. f Product Backlog items have the attributes of a description, order, estimate and value.

To create and maintain the backlog, we capture every work item in the backlog, we clarify each Product Backlog Item with a definition of success and story point estimate, we organize (or rank) PBIs by business value, plan the next iteration, and ---"Engage, ensign!"

SMART Stories

A great way to manage your time is to use SMART objectives, so you don't waste time spinning your wheels.

SMART objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timeboxed -- which is literally the definition of a well-written Scrum story (or Product Backlog item).

We specify user stories and a definition of success for each story, to be sure it's attainable and relevant, and measure the effort for each story, as well as our overall velocity for a sprint. We timebox our work into a set increment, and only accept the amount of work that can fit into that box.

Pomodoro Breakpoints

The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team to synchronize activities and create a plan for the next 24 hours. Brief, daily meetings help motivate team members to stay on point and short-circuit churning. If someone is impeded, the standup ensures we can take a beat and reach out for help.

Churning can be a real problem for developers. It's easy to go down a rabbit hole, and keep thinking one more code-build-test cycle will do it. Thirty builds later, you're still churning.

I've been known to set a two-hour timer on my phone, to force myself to take a break from whatever I'm doing, so I don't spend an entire day hitting compile like perpetual-motion drinking bird.

The classic Pomodoro Technique uses an even smaller increment of 30 minutes, but the principle is the same. Don't get lost in the weeds, you need to come up for air regularly.

On the Other Hand

The inimitable Robert C. Martin presents an alternative view of Scrum and Agile in his entertaining and thought-provoking presentation, "The Land that Scrum Forgot". If you haven't seen it, it's well worth viewing and sharing.

Here Abouts

At NimbleUser, we are fortunate to have a strong Scrum culture deeply interested in practicing the framework as intended. We have an experienced and talented Scrum Master guiding our core feature squad, and other Scrum squads focussed on subscriber upgrades and implementations.

Like most folks, we use two-week iterations (synced with payday!), and I'm continually impressed by the effort everyone puts into our blameless retrospectives. Beforehand, we setup a Confluence page with Start/Stop/Continue sections that fills up quickly with suggestions and counter-suggestions, which we discuss at the live meeting.

Following Spotify's lead, we also have several "guilds" where people on different squads can collaborate on shared concerns. The newest is the Developer Experience (DX) Guild, where we coordinate devops tech between feature, upgrade, and implementation squads. Other guilds include Data Management, Training, Technical Writing, Innovation, Software Standards -- and a Social Guild for enjoying the ride outside the office.

My personal tip would be to avoid "Scrum but" like the plague. First, use the framework as designed, and then go for "Scrum plus". A good practice is to set up a copy of the Scrum Guide on your company wiki, and annotate it with how you apply and extend the framework.

And, if you use Scrum, do fight hard for the infrastructure stories. As developers, it's on us to be sure product owners understand -- before the jalopy runs dry -- when we've been too busy driving to get gas.

Great infrastructure is the best way to enjoy the ride!

Does your team practice Scrum (or Scrum but)? Do you struggle with agile, or find that it helps you stay on task? If you could do anything differently on your own team, what would it be?

Ted Husted is a Kaizen Squad developer on the Nimble AMS product crew. "We make the good changes that create a great product." For more, follow @tedhusted on Twitter.